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Social justice concerns have been tied to the organic cause at least since its embrace by the 1960s counterculture, but how social justice is perceived and pursued is complicated and contradictory. One interpretation sees social justice in support for family farmers imperilled by competition from big agribusiness. In the minds of many, organic provides an avenue for these farmers to receive a fair return for their products. There is tension between this sentiment and the fact that organic goods command a price premium that places them out of reach of many low income consumers. The struggle for food justice has developed in parallel with the organic movement, yet there is little overlap between them. The matter of farm labor further complicates social justice pursuits as many organic farms employ migrant workers, underpaid interns or engage in other exploitative labor practices. The matter of social justice remains a challenge for the organic movement.

This chapter summarizes the main arguments of the book, reprises the usefulness of centering the narratives of everday residents, and explores the limits of self-reliance through a reflection on the death of a research participant. This chapter also connects Deanwood to a larger food justice agenda by discussing the role of organizations in the pursuit of an equitable, justice food system.

This chapter provides a review of the key arguments made within each chapter throughout the book and further explains how colonialism and coloniality have been the underlying assumptions that resulted in food and environmental injustice. As such, this chapter unpacks the ways in which this book attempts to dismantle and decolonize those assumptions. With respect to food injustice and decolonial thinking, this book has followed the suggestion of Indigenous scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith and attempted to center the concerns and worldviews of Black people specifically and other people of color in general. This chapter explains how using a compassion-based approach to center the concerns and worldviews of Black people, helped develop answers to three questions crucial for the development of new foodways: who we are as human beings and Christians, who ought we to become, and how we should live in response to those answers.

The first chapter introduces the Superfund process, and describes how concepts and theories around environmental justice and political ecology need to be framed with an understanding of settler colonialism to be applied to Native American communities. This introduction also describes the community based methods from which this project was born, and lays out the three bodies (individual, social and political) through which Akwesasro:non responses to topics throughout the book are framed

Prior to the discovery of contamination in the river, Akwesasne relied on fishing and farming to sustain food needs and the local economy. The fourth chapter focuses on changes in food culture in Akwesasne and the direct and collateral ways that people connect this, and the ensuing health complications, to the environmental contamination and other factors

Rooted in interview material with scientists, field workers and study participants, as well as the literatures of citizen science, CBPR, and study report-back, the third chapter discusses the benefits and challenges for both scientists and community members of this large-scale CBPR project.

Drawing from interviews, archival materials, public meeting minutes, and newspaper clippings, the second chapter documents the history of the discovery of, and efforts to remediate environmental contamination, as well as the work that went into establishing community based environmental health research at Akwesasne

The fifth chapter explores the ways in which Akwesasne community members conceptualize the environmental, social, and physiological origins of diabetes, placing the blame not just on individual non-compliant bodies, but rather weaving a more complex etiology that indicates connections between PCBs and diabetes

The book’s conclusion highlights how Akwesasro:non suggestions for ways to improve environmental health research and health care can be framed through a model of three bodies: the individual, social, and political bodies. This final chapter also explores how Mohawks have created a third space of sovereignty that addresses their health, cultural and research needs in the face of environmental contamination, through grassroots and tribal programs

Chapter 1 lays out the history of this community in the context of a driving tour, using landmarks along the main thoroughfare to discuss relevant points in Akwesasne’s history to illustrate the historico-political setting for community responses to the environmental contamination